Along the way, Han Li encountered a few villagers who found his face somewhat unfamiliar. They eyed him with curiosity but no one came forward to question him.
Han Li reached his destination without difficulty.
He eyed the extremely worn and pitch-black stone house before him, hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and gave the door a light push. The stone door didn't budge.
Was there some sort of mechanism on this door? A faint flicker of surprise passed through Han Li's mind. He took a deep breath and put the full force of both arms into it.
Though he had never trained in any external martial arts, after the bone-and-meridian cleansing that came with Foundation Establishment and Core Formation, he could easily exert well over a hundred jin of force.
A groaning creak sounded, heavy and deep. Though it was very slow, the door was finally being pushed open inch by inch.
Seeing this, Han Li felt a surge of delight.
Only now did he realize that, for some reason, this door was more than twice as thick as a normal stone gate. No wonder it was so heavy — he had almost suspected there was a hidden mechanism on it.
Han Li flickered forward and stepped inside. A wave of damp, musty, rotten air hit him in the face.
His expression tightened, and he quickly held his breath.
After a moment, fresh air from outside flowed in, and the atmosphere inside gradually returned to normal.
Only then did he let out a quiet breath. By the faint light from the doorway, he surveyed the interior.
The place was extremely simple. Aside from rows of stone tablets of roughly the same size lining the walls, there was only a crude stone table in the middle of the room.
The tablets were about one zhang wide and two zhang tall — quite massive. Han Li was momentarily stunned upon seeing them.
On the stone table, there were no books, bamboo slips, or anything of the sort. Only a few magical artifacts that appeared dull and devoid of luster.
The look of surprise on Han Li's face quickly faded. After a moment's thought, he chuckled to himself.
This wasn't the outside world. Where would one find paper or bamboo here? As for jade slips, without spiritual energy they were useless anyway.
These stone tablets were clearly the records and texts of this place. Presumably, they contained the insights and experiences left behind by those cultivators.
As for the magical artifacts on the table, it seemed they were like his own flying swords — their owners had never properly stored them away, and both people and items had been sucked into this place together. Naturally, they couldn't be placed back into storage pouches either.
As for storage pouches, Han Li didn't see a single one in the room. It seemed the owners had their own way of dealing with them and hadn't left them on display here.
After surveying the room, Han Li casually walked up to one of the stone tablets and gave it a couple of glances.
It was covered in thick dust, a gray haze that made it impossible to see what was carved on it.
Frowning, Han Li didn't mind getting dirty. He leaned in close, tore a strip from his robe, and gently wiped the surface.
After a moment, clear inscriptions emerged before his eyes.
These weren't the characters used in the current cultivation world, but a less commonly seen form of ancient script. Fortunately, Han Li's studies were broad enough that he could recognize them with relative ease.
But after only a few glances at this tablet, Han Li lost interest.
It was nothing more than a collection of miscellaneous writings by a Foundation Establishment cultivator documenting his life experiences. Han Li had no desire to read further. He immediately moved on to the other tablets.
There were over twenty stone tablets in the room. When Han Li wiped down the sixth one, his expression finally shifted, and he stopped in his tracks. This was exactly what he was looking for — the cultivation insights left behind by a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Han Li stood before the tablet, motionless. He didn't know how long he stayed there, but eventually he let out a long breath, a complex expression on his face.
"So condensing a Nascent Soul has this many taboos and pitfalls. It seems that even with the Nine-Stage Spirit Ginseng to aid me, without knowing these things my chances of success wouldn't have been very high. Falling into this Yin-Yang netherworld — whether this turns out to be a blessing or a curse is truly hard to say," Han Li murmured to himself.
Although this stone tablet didn't contain a single specific cultivation technique, that nameless Nascent Soul cultivator had recorded his experiences in exhaustive detail — from Foundation Establishment through Core Formation and all the way to condensing a Nascent Soul. Reading it filled Han Li with both surprise and joy. With the guidance of this Nascent Soul cultivator's experiences, he could avoid many wrong turns and steer clear of certain misconceptions about condensing a Nascent Soul.
After reading through the tablet several times and confirming he hadn't overlooked anything, Han Li finally turned his head with satisfaction and looked at the remaining tablets.
He had originally intended to leave, but then he reconsidered. Since he had already gone through a little over half of them, he might as well finish the rest. Broadening his knowledge could only be a good thing.